Gurugram Teenager Venyaa Yadav’s Short Film On Street Vendors Fuels Poverty Debate

Venyaa Yadav

Street vendors constitute a huge community of more than 10 million unorganized workers and their lives are hard. While most of the people stop by to purchase a thing or two from them while travelling on highways, or shopping in busy marketplaces, a Gurugram teenager, Venyaa Yadav, couldn't just pass by. Instead, she decided to shine the spotlight on the deprived lives of the street vendors, who constitute the most significant segment in the country's unorganized sector.

Venyaa Yadav, a student of Modern School, Vasant Vihar, has shown a heart-breaking but different perspective of the parallel economy being run by these street vendors, who are by no doubt, dealing with unbelievably harsh challenges in life every day. Venyaa worked on this documentary with Yashi Shukla, a renowned overseas education consultant/counselor. Yashi has been helping Venyaa identify her passions and it was during that process that Venyaa got struck with an idea to create a film showcasing how parallel economy in India has been ignored for decades. After having a few meetings with her counselor and after months of research, Venyaa got started on the process with her team of volunteers. Venyaa says about her mentor, "I love watching documentaries and wanted to make one about the entrepreneurship in India. After researching a bit, I found out that there aren't documentaries specifically targeting that culture. So, after further research and discussion, we decided to put the spotlight on the hidden entrepreneurship talent among Indian Street Vendors"

Venyaa began with identifying volunteers who wouldn't hesitate to work with her on this project, despite it being the pandemic times. She used existing as well as fresh footage to create a narrative in support of the street vendors. Apart from calling the documentary a tribute to the resilient spirit of the unorganized workers, Venyaa also credits her team of volunteers as well as her mentor for their contribution in making the film possible. She proclaims that her documentary would help the rest of the world understand the condition of street vendors in India as well as the challenges they need to overcome.

Talking about this deprived section of Indian society, Venyaa says, "Street vendors constitute the most significant, yet deprived segment of India's unorganized sector. The condition of women and child vendors, however, is the most depressing and necessitous." She mentions that these street vendors are the most important connection between the urban and rural landscape of India. The documentary is the story of thousands of rural Indians who come to the city in search of a livelihood because they are unable to survive on traditional professions like agriculture alone. It is ironic that these vendors, who provide the most convenient services at an affordable manner to the urban population, are facing the brunt of unsympathetic, hostile and unreceptive system.

Venyaa claims that approximately 14% of India's urban informal economy are these street vendors, only a few of whom are literate. The lack of education in this section means they become a victim of an unfair informal economy. This is corroborated by the fact that in Mumbai alone, only 15,000 of the city's 250,000 street vendors operate with licenses. But that doesn't save them from the local exploitation in the form of extortion money being paid to corrupt administration or local goons.

Talking about ways to make their lives better, Venyaa suggests common Indians can contribute to sustaining the livelihood of these street vendors by purchasing from them instead of favoring online delivery services.

If you feel the pain of these street vendors, next time you want to eat bhel-puri, order fresh vegetables, or buy household goods, look around you and order from those struggling throughout their daily lives.

That is the message of this brilliant Gurugram teenager's documentary!